


He Whose Hand and Eye Are Gentle

by khalulu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Banter, Eventual Romance, H/D Career Fair 2017, HP: EWE, Humor, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Kitsune, M/M, Mentions of Tanuki, Owls, Poet Draco Malfoy, Poetry, Post-Hogwarts, Slow Build, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-08 01:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12244569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khalulu/pseuds/khalulu
Summary: Draco reads poems and sometimes writes them.  Harry receives poems and sometimes reads them.  Rutherford delivers poems via the scenic route.  Wombat snores.  Eventually, all comes together, with help from the foxes in red bibs and the sumo referee.





	He Whose Hand and Eye Are Gentle

**Author's Note:**

> For Prompt #[45](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LiaSm8GWFLsDD8KUOZmlTSHmhIMyFZzdqYNfB-25Khk/edit).
> 
> The title of this fic and associated quotations are from [a poem of the same name](https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/he-whose-hand-and-eye-are-gentle), a Welsh song translated by Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson, published in _The Celtic Miscellany_. 
> 
> See the end-notes for references to other poems, and links to pictures.
> 
> Thank you so much to the fabulous mods, more patient than I deserve, and to my speedy beta S. Errors from post-beta tinkering are mine.

It began with a question from his landlady’s little girl, Miranda. Draco liked her; she was a slightly awkward, bookish child, but Draco himself was socially awkward in the years after the war, and found books easier to deal with than people. Preferably books written by authors who’d never heard of Draco Malfoy or his parents. 

“I’m writing a poem,” Miranda told him one afternoon.

“An admirable pursuit,” said Draco.

“Want to hear it?”

It was likely to be short, so Draco nodded.

_“Roses are red,_  
_Violets are blue,_  
_Harry Potter_  
_I love you.”_

“When did you meet Harry Potter, Miranda?” It was hard to imagine; Potter was known to be reclusive.

“I didn’t. But maybe I can if he likes my poem.”

“Then how do you know that you love him?”

“Because he’s a hero.”

“He did most of his heroic deeds before you were born.” Which was lucky, because it meant most of Draco’s shameful deeds had happened before she was born, too.

“But he made the world safe for us. So teacher says we should join the ‘Send Harry Some Love’ campaign. Do you like my poem?”

Draco could be diplomatic when necessary. “Well, the message is clear. And it rhymes, though it doesn’t quite scan.”

Miranda frowned.

“Verse has meter, a certain rhythm,” he explained. “For example, you could say

_Roses are red,_  
_Violets are blue,_  
_Oh, Harry Potter,_  
_How I love you._

Then the lines start with a similar beat.”

Miranda beamed. “Thank you! Can you write it for me? You have nice handwriting.”

He should have protested, but Draco was in fact a bit vain about his handwriting, and Miranda looked so pleased. He even let her use his owl, Rutherford. Draco never had occasion to write Potter himself, so it’s not likely Potter would know it was Draco’s owl. He helped Miranda tie the little scroll to Rutherford’s leg, and they watched her fly off.

Miranda left happily, Rutherford returned in good time, and Draco would have forgot about it. Except that another little girl turned up on his doorstep.

“Miranda said you know how to write poems.”

“Yes?”

“I can’t get mine to rhyme. It goes:

_Roses are red, violets are blue, I don’t even know what to do because I’m so in love with Harry Potter._ ”

Draco held back a sigh. “Perhaps shorter lines would help?

 _Roses are red,_  
_Violets are blue,_  
_I love Harry Potter,_  
_What shall I do?_ ”

“Thank you. Could you write it out for me because I make splotches with a quill and could I borrow your owl?”

So Draco found himself sending off another bit of love doggerel to Harry Potter. The little girl looked satisfied and startled him by leaving a Knut on the table by the door.

“You don’t need to pay – ” he began, but she had gone. Draco shrugged. He could use it towards owl treats, or ink.

She must have spread the word, as more requests followed, from people of all ages. It appeared he had a business, which grew with no effort on his part. The ‘Send Harry Some Love’ campaign was in full swing, and lots of people were prepared to outsource their poem-writing and not very picky about the results. Draco dashed a few off each morning. It gave Rutherford some exercise, and didn’t tax Draco much. 

One day Rutherford returned with a message.

_Blah blah blah red,_  
_Blah blah blah blue,_  
_Haven’t you anything_  
_Better to do?_

_H. Potter_

Draco snorted. Really, Potter was being quite rude to his admirers, although his verse wasn’t any worse than the ones Draco had been sending. Draco hadn’t actually expected Potter to read them, though.

He took a quill and scratched a quick reply.

_Roses are red,_  
_Dandelions yellow,_  
_Come on Potter,_  
_Don’t harsh my mellow._

Rutherford looked dubious, but bore the unsigned message without complaint and returned empty-taloned.

All the people wishing to commission verse were accustoming Draco to a wider circle of human contact. He decided to go to a Quidditch match, something he hadn’t done in ages.

He was queuing for a hot butterbeer (there was a nippy breeze) when he heard, “ _‘Don’t harsh my mellow?’_ Seriously, Malfoy?”

Draco turned sharply. That was Potter’s voice, and Potter shouldn’t have known who was writing to him. But the non-descript man addressing him didn’t look like Potter.

No wonder people seldom saw Potter these days, if he went out under a Glamour.

The man seemed to be waiting for a reply.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” Draco said blandly. “Your mellow – should you be fortunate enough to achieve one – will remain unharshed by me.”

Potter snorted, turned and left. 

Sipping his butterbeer, Draco watched the match with pleasure, but a slight sense of something missing.

Business slacked off a bit, but Draco was still sending a verse every week or so. Potter couldn’t prove he was the author, Draco reasoned, and in any case there was no law against bad poetry.

He ran into Potter again at Flourish and Blotts. Still Glamoured, but Draco recognized the way Potter stood even before he spoke. 

“You know, Malfoy, I have violets in my garden,” Potter said.

“How nice for you,” said Draco.

_“Violets are purple.”_

Draco narrowed his eyes, recognizing a challenge.

 _“And fuschias are fuschia,”_ Potter continued.

Draco made a non-committal noise and reached for a book at random, thinking furiously as he riffled through the pages trying to look calm. Potter waited. Finally the solution floated to mind.

_“Don’t let yourself_  
_Get bogged down in minutia,”_

Draco advised, looking up and smiling sweetly.

The Glamour thinned for a moment as Potter’s eyes gleamed green. He nodded and left.

It was a near thing, though – what if Draco had had to find a rhyme for purple? Even if he’d managed to, Potter could counter with “Nasturtiums are orange” or “Mushrooms are beige,” and that way madness lay. It was time to branch out.

Draco began to pillage other poems for inspiration. 

_Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Potter_

_To a Potter:_  
_Hail to thee, blithe Potter!_  
_Bird thou never wert,_  
_That from off thy racing broom_  
_Tumblest to the dirt…_

 _Whenas in leather my Potter goes,_  
_Then, then (methinks) how squeaky grows_  
_The Quidditch action of his clothes._

It was rather fun, so even when demand for poems to Potter dropped further, Draco would send one on his own every now and then.

As he read more widely in poetry, Draco began to want to write original verse, for himself. It was not easy, but by trying to find words, suspended in his craft, time slipped by and he began to discover what he felt and what he thought. And sometimes, if the words were right, they could preserve the wonder, or contain the pain. And perhaps someday, reading them, someone else might enter his poems like a Pensieve and see through his eyes. 

So he tried to make them true.

Still, sometimes, as a sort of warm-up exercise, he’d dash off a few light-hearted lines about Potter and send them.

_Have you got a world needs savin’?_  
_Call the hero we’ve been cravin’,_  
_He with hair as black as raven…_

Rutherford, a clever and nimble owl, had learned to roll and attach a scroll herself, which made it simple for Draco to post them off.

Some time later, Draco ran into Potter on Diagon Alley. Potter, un-Glamoured this time, actually nodded and said hello, so Draco did the same. “Good afternoon, Potter. Haven’t seen you around for a while.”

“Oh, I’m not harassed as much these days, so it’s easier to go out,” Potter said. “People seem to have moved on. New generation of heroes now.”

This made no sense. Draco frowned.

“By the way, Malfoy – do ravens go gray?” 

“You say the oddest things, Potter.”

“ _I_ say odd things?” Potter laughed, a genuine crinkly-eyed laugh, and then Draco noticed the lines on his face, and the glint of silver in his hair. 

_To me, fair friend, you never can be old,_  
_For as you were when first your eye I eyed,_  
_Such seems your beauty still._

He shook himself slightly. Now was no time for Shakespearean sonnets to pop into mind, especially such a nonsensical one as that. Potter was giving him a quizzical smile that Draco had no idea how to respond to, so he excused himself and walked away.

Draco was distracted and found it hard to concentrate for the next week. He did a lot of flying. Finally he decided he had to get back to writing. As usual, he went to warm up with a poem for Potter. 

His mind drifted back to his earliest anonymous effort at age twelve, the satirical Valentine.

_His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,_  
_His hair is as dark as a blackboard,_  
_I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,_  
_The hero who conquered the Dark Lord._

He’d done it for the laugh of seeing Potter publicly embarrassed, tackled by a gruff singing dwarf in a Cupid costume. Of course Draco couldn’t afford to have people know he’d written it – they might have got the wrong idea. So he’d planted the idea that it was Ginny Weasley’s poem. But no Weasley would have used the words ‘Dark Lord.’

These days Potter’s hair might be the color of a very chalky blackboard, but his eyes were still brilliant green. 

Emerald was a hard word to rhyme. Emerald, reveled, devil. Gentle.

That reminded Draco of a poem that had struck him recently, he wasn’t sure why. It was in a borrowed book that he’d need to return soon. Perhaps he should make a copy.

_To tell you from the start, I have lost him whose hand and eye are gentle; I shall go to seek him of the slender eyebrows, wherever the most generous and fairest of men may be._

_I shall go to the midst of Gwent without delaying, to the south I shall go to search, and charge the sun and the moon to seek for him whose hand and eye are gentle…._

When he finished copying it he felt oddly melancholy. _Stop brooding,_ he told himself firmly. _Write a bit of doggerel for Potter and then get on with your work._ Draco scrawled out a few barely satisfactory lines but was still restless. He stood up, calling his owl.

“Rutherford! Come and take Potter his verse, it’s on the table. I’m just going for a quick broom ride.”

oOo

Rutherford, awakened from a nap, flew over to the table as Draco left. She found a short verse on paper and a longer poem on parchment. All post owls could read; many didn’t bother to read much beyond the addresses on the mail they carried, but Rutherford had developed literary interests. She perused the poems.

The short one was something about _eyes of emerald/… brightest in the gem world_. The rhyme was forced, in her opinion. The longer poem was more pleasing, plus it had quite a bit about birds in the middle part, and the parchment was better quality.

Rutherford liked Harry Potter. He gave good owl treats, and didn’t hold it against her that she so often delivered rubbishy verse to him. She decided he deserved the longer nicer poem, so she folded and rolled it up tightly and, using her beak and one foot, tied it to her other leg. She sailed out the window toward Harry Potter’s house. She knew the way very well by now; in fact, she knew a number of different routes, being an owl who liked variety.

When she was almost to his house, she could sense that Potter wasn’t there. This happened at times, of course; people went out. She could leave the poem at his house, inside if there was a window open, or tied outside. Or she could wait a while for him to return. 

Rutherford thought she’d like to see Harry Potter’s face when he received a good poem for a change. She decided to wait, and do a little mousing in the meantime. It was a bit awkward to hunt while carrying mail, but she’d had practice.

Potter still hadn’t returned by midnight, which was unusual for him. Rutherford flew up high to concentrate better. Her owl sense told her he had gone east. She followed. Finally she reached the seashore and realized that Potter had crossed over to the Continent. 

At this point she would have been well within her rights to turn back home. She was not responsible for international mail. But she’d taken an interest in this delivery, and she’d never seen France…. 

As a short-eared owl, Rutherford had a nomadic nature. It was a calm night, and gliding across the English Channel by starlight was a pleasure.

Once in France she did a bit of hunting as necessary to keep up her flying strength and then followed her Potter-sense over the countryside. Over several days it grew stronger and stronger. Finally she spotted a group of wizards and heard the tones of Potter’s voice. She began sailing down to them, just as… Potter disappeared. 

The other wizards continued to wave farewell for a moment, which was silly, as Potter was clearly gone. (Rutherford would have heard him if he’d been under an Invisibility Cloak.) She clacked her bill in irritation. She hadn’t heard even the faintest pop of disapparition, which meant a Portkey, so he had probably gone far.

Trying to sense Potter’s location, she was distracted by odd bird-like vibrations coming from the witches with the long blonde hair, and more faintly from the children. There were wings in their ancestry, she was sure of it. The two men had nothing bird-like about them, though the tall one with the scarred face had the same type of red hair as some of Potter’s friends.

She would not be able to track Potter while she was agitated, so Rutherford caught a vole to calm her nerves. It had a piquant flavor, perhaps from the herbs it ate. French food truly was good…. 

Rutherford spotted a cathedral in the distance and flew over to investigate. She was in France, after all, so she might as well make the most of it. The stained glass was beautiful. The gargoyles, as usual, were interesting but rude.

Feeling rested, she decided to head back toward England and look for Potter at home. She sensed that was the right direction. The wind was against her though, and slowed her progress. Eventually she neared the coast, becoming ever surer of Potter’s location in England, when suddenly he shifted again. Gone from England, turning up… back on the Continent, but even further east!

Rutherford huffed in annoyance. Maybe she should forget this wild-Potter chase and go back to England. Draco would not blame her. But then she recalled the lines of the poem she carried:

_As I was walking under the vine the nightingale bade me rest, and it would get information for me where was he whose hand and eye are gentle._

_The cuckoo said most kindly that she herself was quite well informed, and would send her servant to inquire without ceasing where was he whose hand and eye are gentle._

_The cock-thrush advised me to have faith and hope, and said he himself would take a message to him whose hand and eye are gentle._

_The blackbird told me she would travel to Cambridge and to Oxford, and would not complete her nest till she found him whose hand and eye are gentle._

When all of these other birds promised to seek so faithfully, how could she, an owl and professional messenger, fail to complete her mission? 

At least the wind was with her at the moment. Rutherford wasn’t giving up now.

She rather lost track of the days before she finally came close to Potter again, in the mountains of Romania. It was rugged, beautiful country, but there were too many dragons for her taste. At last she found Potter, flying with another red-haired man – did he collect them? 

Delivering post in mid-air was tricky, so she waited for them to land, looking forward to praise, amazement, and the satisfaction of a job well done. Then Rutherford heard the rush of dragon-wings and felt the heat of flames. She dodged swiftly, indignant. Owls are predators, not prey! Dragons had no respect.

When she was at leisure to attend to Potter again, she heard him calling, “Thanks again, Charlie! Goodbye!” Rutherford looked on in frustration as once more Potter disappeared, leaving a waving red-head behind.

Once she’d reached a place of relative safety from flying flaming lizards, Rutherford took stock of the situation. She was so familiar with Potter’s magical signature by now that she had a faint sense of him even over very long distances, and she felt that he had continued east. As long as he didn’t go too far south, this was still within the range for her type of owl; she remembered her great-great-aunt Odessa, a legendary traveler who’d voyaged far and wide, occasionally hitching a ride on a ship or even the Orient Express. 

Several weeks later, Rutherford flew down from her perch atop a train on the Trans-Siberian Railroad as it neared Vladivostok. Potter’s signature had become stronger, but it was across water. Across the Sea of Japan, to be exact. 

Rutherford was well-rested from her sleeper-car ride, and managed the sea-crossing without difficulty. She glided south, toward the island of Kyushu, following Potter’s trace to a wooded ravine full of hot springs where a little wizarding village of traditional inns offered open-air bathing. And there he was! His hair was even wilder than usual from the steam and he looked relaxed. _“Arigato gozaimasu,”_ he was saying to someone at the door of an inn, “It was lovely.”

Oh no – that sounded like a leave-taking! Rutherford swooped down toward him with all speed and saw his startled look just before, once more, he disappeared.

Rutherford nearly shredded the message parchment in rage. Really, it was too much. Here she was nearly at the Pacific Ocean, and did Potter have the decency to just wait a few more moments for her? No! 

She tore up some bamboo leaves until her temper had cooled. A scops owl was looking askance at her. Rutherford attempted to explain, wanting advice or at least sympathy, but the owl, while polite, didn’t seem to understand her situation at all.

“Something wrong? Have a drink, you’ll feel better!” said a friendly looking animal that Rutherford couldn’t place – a sort of cross between a dog and a raccoon. 

Rutherford declined the drink, but thanked him. The animal, who said he was a tanuki, told her that owls in Japan were not wizarding messengers. “Try a kitsune for that. A fox. Look for them at an Inari shrine, there are always a pair. I hear at the big shrine in Kyoto there are hundreds of them. Look for red-orange gates called torii. Thousands of torii at that shrine! Winding up a mountain. Go north.”

The sacred mountain was a fair distance away, but it was unmistakeable, and indeed full of kitsune. They were foxes carved in stone, facing each other in pairs, looking alert, confident and bushy tailed. Each pair was unique, and each fox was nattily dressed in a scarlet cloth bib tied around the neck. They guarded the entrance and watched over scores of little altars all the way up the mountain. Some carried round balls or keys in their mouths and some, Rutherford was delighted to discover, carried scrolls. 

She found a small altar on a side path, off the beaten tourist track, and described her problem to the two kitsune there. After setting down its scroll, one replied to her.

“You have been a diligent messenger, but perhaps it would be best if you return home now.”

“I want to,” Rutherford said, “but it’s a very long way. I’m afraid my wizard there is wondering what happened to me.”

“The chief wizards here know secret ways to travel very far quickly,” said the other kitsune. “One of them is in Osaka now to officiate at the Grand Sumo Tournament. We could write a message to him for you. You will know him by his splendid robes with the purple trim. I believe he will help you.”

Rutherford offered them some fresh caught mice to express her gratitude, but they said they preferred deep-fried tofu. There was no accounting for taste, so she thanked them again and flew off to Osaka with the message clutched firmly in her talons. 

The chief wizard, a small austere man resplendent in brocaded silk, agreed to help Rutherford after the tournament. He pointed out an inconspicuous spot high in a corner of the sumo hall where she could perch. Rutherford settled in to watch the ring-entering ceremony.

The procession of sumo wrestlers had their hair in topknots, bare chests, and impressive bellies cradled by colorful aprons that fell past their knees. Each had a unique, ornately embroidered design: a dragon, a flag, a mountain, and on one baby-faced swaggerer, cherry blossoms. 

After they circled the ring, clapped and filed off, the highest ranked wrestler entered the ring with two attendants. He lifted both arms above his head like an owl getting a good wing-stretch, brought them forward and clapped. Then he leaned sideways for a one-sided wing and leg stretch. (Of course being wingless he was handicapped, but he tried to compensate, lifting the leg very high and stamping with energy.) Next he squatted low and slid forward on his feet. The crowd shouted approval.

The matches began. After a parade of sponsors’ banners, a pair of wrestlers would enter dressed only in tightly wrapped silk loincloths. They tossed in handfuls of salt to purify the ring, kicked their legs up sideways and stamped, slapped their bellies, adjusted the fringe on their loincloths and squatted, rose and squatted again and finally faced off. As soon as both signaled readiness they exploded into action. 

The officiating wizard moved nimbly about the ring, keeping out of the way of the wrestlers as they pushed and grappled. Some simply slapped and shoved, some neatly caught the other off balance, and some grabbed their opponents by the loincloth and tugged them down or bodily lifted them out of the ring. It happened fast.

The wizard proclaimed the winner by pointing his fan, the loser bowed deferentially and left the ring, and the winner squatted to receive his reward money.

It was not in the least like Quidditch, or like hunting mice. 

Travel truly was educational. She wanted to tell someone about it. Someone back home.

oOo

Draco wondered what had happened to Rutherford. At first, seeing that the little verse he’d scrawled was still on the table, he assumed that she’d gone out hunting without hearing his instructions. When she didn’t return by the next day, he worried a little, and more when another day went by. He looked for her and called, made inquiries and finally put notices in the _Daily Prophet_ and _Quibbler_ , offering a reward. The house was lonely without her.

He took to going for long walks, and noticed a shaggy brownish dog begging for food in the park. “The owners up and left without him,” someone told Draco. “I suppose they didn’t want him anymore, old and fat as he is.”

The dog was indeed round, slow-moving and near-sighted. But he was affable, leaning warmly against Draco’s leg and thumping his tail. “You can stay with me,” Draco said. “Do you have a name? Can’t tell me? I think your name is Wombat.”

Wombat seemed content with his name, and with the house, and with Draco. 

One day, as he was sitting on a park bench scratching Wombat behind the ears, Draco was surprised to see Harry Potter walking towards him.

“Hello,” Potter said. “How have you been?”

“Not bad,” Draco said cautiously.

“Mind if I sit down?”

Draco shook his head and made room on the bench, wondering. “I didn’t think you lived around here,” he said finally.

“I don’t,” Potter said. “But I heard that you might.”

Draco blinked at him. His capacity for quick repartee seemed to have vanished along with his owl.

“Ah. I, er, haven’t seen you around for a while, Potter.” Of course, that could be because Draco hadn’t much felt like going anywhere.

“I was away. I was feeling a bit unsettled, so I went along to France with Bill Weasley and his family when they invited me. Fleur’s sister Gabrielle still lives there.”

That girl Potter had saved from drowning in the Tri-Wizarding Tournament, many long years ago. Potter had saved so many different people’s lives. It probably wasn’t as memorable for him as for the one he’d – for example – plucked from a Fiendfyre. 

“They were very attractive, those Delacours,” Draco said. Unfair advantage, Veela blood.

“What? Oh. I suppose. Anyway, when I came back I was even more restless. So I left again. Sort of went on a quest.”

“Searching for what?” 

Potter grinned. “My mellow.”

Draco couldn’t help smiling. “Find it?”

“I came closest in Japan, between the mountain shrines and the hot springs. But… sometimes we don’t realize what we’re really looking for. When I first came back from France, I guess I was expecting to find a poem. When I didn’t… my disappointment surprised me. I didn’t want to think about it. Now, I think perhaps I should have shown more appreciation for the poems I did get. Especially the later ones, that came after most of them had stopped.”

Draco had no idea what to say.

“Are you, er, doing much writing these days? That is – sorry. You don’t have to answer that if it’s personal.” Potter was fumbling over his words. 

“I lost my owl,” Draco said.

Potter’s face filled with concern. “I’m so sorry.”

“I mean, she’s still alive, I think….” Because surely she was, or Draco would have felt it? “I just don’t know where.”

Potter’s sympathetic gaze held Draco’s eyes until a snore from Wombat brought him back. 

“Who’s this then?” Potter stretched out a hand to Wombat, who roused himself enough to sniff the fingers.

“That’s Wombat. He likes to dig up my garden. We found each other a few weeks ago.”

“And does he receive poems?”

Draco smiled and recited.

_“O uommibatto!_  
_Agil, giocondo,_  
_Che ti sei fatto_  
_Irsuto e tondo!_  
_Deh, non fuggire_  
_Qual vagabondo_  
_Non disparire_  
_Forando il mondo:_  
_Peso davvero_  
_D'un emisfero_  
_Non lieve il pondo.”_

Potter looked startled and impressed.

“It means something like ‘Round, hairy, playful wombat! Don’t run off, burrow into the earth and disappear.’ It’s by Christina Rossetti, who wrote _Goblin Market_.”

“A witch?”

“No, she couldn’t have ever met any actual goblins; that poem is very sensual. The goblins go about tempting people to suck on luscious juicy fruits.”

Potter raised an eyebrow and Draco felt his cheeks warming. He shifted the topic back. “Her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti was mad about wombats. He drew a picture of his muse walking his pet wombat on a leash. They both have haloes.” 

Potter was smiling steadily now and Draco felt himself about to fall into those green eyes again, when a shadow passed overhead.

oOo

The chief wizard had wafted her back from Japan using his magical fan; very effective, if a bit disorientating. There was a loud whooshing which somehow did not so much as ruffle a feather, and the next thing Rutherford knew she was flying over English countryside, not far from home. She had wondered whether to return to Draco first or to find Potter, but it seemed she didn’t have to choose yet. From what she could sense, they were located very close to each other.

And there they were – sitting on a park bench together. But where did that dog come from? She swooped down to investigate.

“ _Ruthie?_ Ruthie!” Draco’s face lit up with wonderment, his awed voice trembled. It was very satisfactory. Rutherford gave him an affectionate blink but decided to conclude her business with Potter first. Let Draco see how seriously she took her work! Rutherford shook the leg with the parchment at Potter.

But Potter was looking at Draco, with a fond smile on his face.

Rutherford shook her leg at Potter again, and clapped her wings to get his attention. She’d crossed two continents twice over to deliver this poem, and if Potter knew what was good for him, he’d take it!

“Is this… a delivery?” Potter asked, while Draco stared. Potter tried to untie the parchment, but the knot had tightened so much he had to use a spell. Rutherford left him to read it and flew to Draco’s shoulder. His hair needed preening.

While she tugged his strands into place with her beak, Draco smoothed her feathers and whispered sweet nothings and apologies and promises, as if he thought it was his fault she’d been gone so long. Rutherford let him. Normally she didn’t like to be called Ruthie in public, but she was feeling indulgent. 

After a bit she turned to see how Potter liked his poem. He was frowning at the parchment. It did look a bit bedraggled, what with the wear and tear of thousands of miles, sea air, rain, mud, train smoke, dragon smoke, and the odd bit of mouse blood. She had tried to be careful, but there was only so much an owl could do.

“What does it say?” Draco asked.

“He who… something eye… something gent…”

 _“He whose hand and eye are gentle.”_ Draco’s voice was hushed, and he was staring at the parchment again.

“Yeah, that must be it. The ink has run, though, and the parchment’s torn and stained. I really can’t read the rest.”

Draco recited quietly. 

_“I shall search through all the lands, in the valley and on the mountain, in the church and in the market, where is he whose hand and eye are gentle._

_Mark you well, my friends, where you see a company of gentlemen, who is the finest and most loving of them; that is he whose hand and eye are gentle.”_

“That’s beautiful,” Potter said softly.

“Yes. I didn’t write it.”

“The handwriting….”

“I mean, I’m not the author. It’s a translation of a Welsh song. I just copied it out, because… I don’t think I really knew why. I didn’t know that I knew what I was looking for.” Draco raised his head to gaze at Potter.

Some feeling warmed the air between them, Rutherford could sense it.

“So,” Potter asked, “this gentle fellow, what else do you know about him?” 

_“None loves a slim dog or a hound like him,”_ Draco quoted, a faint smile on his lips and a brighter one in his eyes.

“How about a pudgy dog?” Potter moved his hand to stroke the shaggy brown dog sitting at Draco’s feet.

“That’s good too,” Draco murmured, playing with the dog’s hair. Their fingers were touching.

Things seemed likely to get sentimental here. Rutherford shot an assessing look at this dog she was apparently going to be sharing a house with. The dog regarded her placidly and thumped his tail against the ground. 

It was probably going to be all right.

Time to go hunt up a nice plump English mouse. Because really, there’s no taste like home.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains take-offs on poems by [Wallace Stevens](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45236/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-a-blackbird), [Percy Bysshe Shelley](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45146/to-a-skylark) and [Robert Herrick](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47339/upon-julias-clothes), and a bit of a sonnet by [Shakespeare](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50387/sonnet-104-to-me-fair-friend-you-never-can-be-old). 
> 
> Rutherford’s name was probably subconsciously inspired by one of [Saras_Girl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saras_Girl/works)’s pet fish.
> 
> Here you can find links to a translation of [ Christina Rossetti’s poem O Uommibatto](https://everything2.com/title/O+Uommibatto), which she wrote for her brother [Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s adored pet wombat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Mrs._Morris_and_the_Wombat.png), seen here in his drawing “Mrs. Morris and the Wombat”. 
> 
> And here are pictures of [sumo wrestler fashion](https://thejapans.org/2013/06/12/sumo-fashion/) and [a sumo ref (gyoji) wielding his fan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Gyoji_with_fan.jpg), though not the chief wizard (he would have sandals). Also some [kitsune](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Kitsune_holding_a_Key_at_Fushimi-Inari_Taisha_-_panoramio.jpg) [foxes](https://www.flickr.com/photos/zrahen/72249141), [a live tanuki](https://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2016/01/tanukiinsnow.jpg.838x0_q80.jpg) and [tanuki statues](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jrballe_2007_statue_of_Tanuki_entrance_shrine.JPG). The closest we Muggles can get to Harry's hot-spring village is [Kurokawa Onsen](http://www.kurokawaonsen.or.jp/eng_new/bathing/); go there if you ever get a chance.
> 
> And below you can see, in the tree on the left, an owl like the one Rutherford met in Japan, from a completely delightful 12th century Japanese scroll called _Choju Giga_ , or "Frolicking Animals."
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! All comments are extremely welcome either here or on [Livejournal](https://hd-fan-fair.livejournal.com/135375.html).


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